


Sweet Dreams

by ficteer



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Inception, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-14 14:04:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2194545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficteer/pseuds/ficteer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time they meet, it’s in a dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweet Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when you listen to the Inception soundtrack while thinking about abemiha, apparently.

  
Abe is used to his vivid dreams and had known from a very young age that he was capable of manipulating every aspect of them. There were parks when he was younger, and strangers who would pitch to him all hours of the night. He could grow, manipulate them into playing baseball with him in every kind of situation so he could watch and learn just what kind of catching would work. And when he wakes and returns to the real world, dons his catching gear and rejoins the diamond of the waking world, his coaches and teammates are always impressed. How does Abe Takaya improve so quickly, they would whisper, completely unsurprised when he joins the best team in the seniors.

Middle school brings different dreams. In these dreams, it’s Haruna pitching to him, but these pitches don’t hurt when they hit. He doesn’t bruise in his mind; he catches every ball flawlessly, and its with glittering eyes that his pitcher greets him on the mound. Dream Haruna praises him, and even though it’s an astonishing six months in the real world to catch Haruna’s real pitches, the lips of the waking world never have the same happy curl as those in Abe’s dreams. And so, he catches, endures, and chooses to go to a separate high school to find a pitcher who can match his dreams.

It’s on a day when he’s exhausted from working on the pitcher’s mound that it happens. He hadn’t slept well the night before due to Shun monopolizing half his bed and personal space after watching a scary movie, so he’d decided that a quick nap before finishing up his work on the infield would allow him to be more productive. Sakaeguchi hadn’t even arrived yet, and Abe knew he’d wake him up when he did get there, so it wasn’t like he would sleep all night in the dugout. Consoled, he took his baseball hat and put it over his face to block out some of the light, closed his heavy eyes, and began to dream.

It was normal as ever to begin with. He quickly constructs a random park, the other people in his dream taking their places on a swing set, walking down the sidewalk and playing with little automated boats in a cute pond. The grass is green, and as Abe closes his eyes, he adds the smells of someone grilling and sweet dango from a nearby stand. The sunlight is intense in his eyes, but he puts a hand on his brow to shield the rays and it’s all right. There are a couple of kids happily tossing back and forth to one another, the soft rubber ball bringing Abe back to a happy childhood before bruises where he could see the seams. It’s a nice dream, a happy and relaxing dream, one that soothes his muscles and calms his breath.

And then, a flash of golden blond hair, a flicker of something that is beyond anything his mind has ever been able to create on its own, and everything changes.

\--------

As he’d expected, Sakaeguchi wakes him from his dream. He blinks once, then twice, then resumes his usual expression and fixes his baseball hat. With a small sigh, he stands and resumes working on the pitcher’s mound.

\--------

It’s the first meeting of the entire baseball club when Abe remembers the dream.

Mihashi Ren is nothing like he had ever experienced in a pitcher. He cried so easily, he was tiny, and his pitches were so slow it wouldn’t be too outrageous to imagine someone running faster to his mitt from the mound. And yet, every time Mihashi wound up and that hair glittered in the sunlight, the ball would sink into his hand right where it was set up, and somehow, it felt like one of his dreams where he was in complete control of creation. With just a flash of his hands and a raised mitt, everything was as he made it. Standing straight and stripping his mask off his face, he stood in awe of the trembling pitcher before him, chest heavy with flight. And then, when they’re on their way back to the dugout, Mihashi passes him, and there’s a flash of gold that freezes time. 

It’s the same as in his dream, that same glitter of blond in streaming sunlight. Abe finally manages to drag his eyes to where Mihashi is nursing a cup of water in the dugout. In his dream he’d been startled by something other than his own mind, and here, awake as can be, he watches Mihashi’s eyes dart to his and then back to the field. Abe sighs purposefully, forcing his attention back to Momoe and baseball for the rest of the afternoon.

When he goes home that evening, he eats dinner, watches baseball with his dad, and dodges Shun’s pleads to help him with his math homework before getting smacked in the head with a newspaper by his mother. Shun finishes quickly, Abe finishes his own homework, and by the time he takes a bath and collapses flushed and comfortable on his bed, his muscles and mind are exhausted and ready for a night of relaxation in a world of his own creating.

Tonight, he builds a city and gets lost in it.

\--------

The first night of training camp, Abe is almost too angry to sleep. He stews over the idiocy of pitchers, unable to get that last image of Mihashi’s determined face as he swayed on the wooden block like a sailor coming onto land after years of sea out of his mind. It’s disgusting, Abe thinks, huffing slightly and looking to his right to glare at the cause of his raging belly ache.

His eyes are closed, but it’s obvious that Mihashi isn’t sleeping. His breathing isn’t deep enough, and his eyebrows are furrowed in worry.  _Serves him right_ , Abe thinks, closing his own eyes and exhaling deeply as he lets his own fatigue settle nicely into his bones. He falls into a dream where he’s watching a professional baseball game, and he spends the entire night creating the perfect shutout for the home team. And yet, despite his almost perfect concentration on the pitch calling of the two imaginary teams, he finds himself taking a break every once in a while to look around the anonymous faces of his crowd. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, but he does know that he’s not finding it.

Training camp continues, and every morning, Abe wakes up with a scowl on his face to match the one he falls asleep to. Every dream is missing something, he thinks, but no matter how much intense creation he puts into each detail, letting his mind fill everything in even as he consciously exerts himself to make a larger and larger world to explore in his sleeping hours, he can’t find it. It’s incredibly frustrating, compounded by the fact that Mihashi is obviously worse for wear each day that passes.

“Mihashi!” he yells when they’re sitting across from one another, cross-legged and supposed to be timing Abe’s reaction to the number board. Mihashi flounders about, but no amount of flailing can hide the dark bags beneath his eyes or the way his face looks tired and sleepless. He’s scrambling to apologize, but every nerve in Abe’s body is irritated. That last stubborn stand Mihashi had taken as he took to the wooden block is seared into his brain, and he can’t help but grit his teeth before he speaks in the calmest voice he can manage. “I asked you if you’re sleeping at night.”

After dodging his eyes around the room, Mihashi says yes. The frustration spills over, and Abe can’t stop the steamroll of words coming out of his mouth. Four days of training camp and still they were like strangers, and all he can think of is Momoe’s face when she told him to take care of Mihashi mixing with this frustration that perhaps she’d asked too much.

\--------

When he falls asleep the next night to dream about their incredible win against Mihoshi, he’s startled to find Mihashi’s face in his dream. He starts to sigh and walk away to a different part of his dream, but a voice behind him and a long-ago feeling cause him to pause.

“A...be-kun?”

It’s Mihashi’s voice, but as he hears it, Abe remembers a dream he had once, long ago. A dream of a park and sudden sunlight with gold in his eyes, a shimmer he sees when he turns around and Mihashi tilts his head. The sunlight meanders through his hair, and Abe blinks, blinded. He remembers that first dream, remembers feeling something foreign about whatever it was, and now, watching Mihashi Ren stand across from him in a dream, he knows that this is no figment of his mind.

“Mihashi…? How did you get in here?” Abe asks, watching as Mihashi looks around while pushing his fingers together. As long as he had been able to control his own dreams, change the world into whatever he’d wanted, never before had something like this happened; it was always his own world, but here was Mihashi, as at home as any of the nameless strangers that were part of his own mind. “You do know this is a dream, right?  _My_  dream.”

It takes him a few false starts and dramatic movements of his arms for Mihashi to communicate what he’s trying to say before Abe thinks he catches something like “it happens sometimes” and “sleeping close”, but that can’t be right. He reaches out and pushes Mihashi slightly at the shoulder, not enough to hurt him but enough to get him off his stance a bit, then looks around at the other people around him. They always ignored him when he ran into them, but Mihashi blinks and looks like a little puppy that just had a toy taken away from it. Somehow, and Abe isn’t sure how, Mihashi Ren is in his dream. 

The question of why it hadn’t happened since that first time crosses his mind, but he recalls Mihashi’s stutters that it only happened sometimes when he was sleeping close to someone. And then, he feels his stomach clench in a knot, because he’d known it before from looking at him but now he had definite  _proof_  that Mihashi hadn’t gotten any sleep all during their training camp until tonight.

“Um… Abe-kun…” Mihashi manages, bringing Abe out of his thoughts. He wiggles where he’s standing, face red and lips quirked in some kind of a demented self-conscious smile. “If this is a dream, um… maybe… pitch?”

Abe stares at him with a dropped jaw, and it takes him a moment to shift from ‘why is Mihashi in my dream’ to ‘of course, Mihashi is in my dream and this is a perfect opportunity’. He feels the grin on his face after he tells Mihashi to follow him, and once they turn a corner, there’s a baseball diamond building itself with all of the gear they’d need. Abe enters the fence and turns to see Mihashi looking dazzled, eyes wide and unable to linger in once place long.

“Abe-kun made this,” he whispers as the diamond continues to improve itself with lights, green grass, and a mound perfectly created just for him. Mihashi takes a glove Abe handed him and slides it onto his hand. He checks its shape around his fingers, then catches a ball Abe tosses him before jogging over to the mound. He looks to Abe, nods at the sign, winds up, and pitches the ball perfectly with a sound against Abe’s mitt that makes his heart skip a beat. 

It’s probably because this is a dream, but somehow, Abe thinks Mihashi shimmers.

\--------

It’s a long time before Abe finds Mihashi in a dream again.

Lunch time for most people is nap time for the baseball team due to their heinous practice schedule. The first time, he’d found it a little difficult to fall asleep in class, but after just one day of practice, he was glad for whatever shuteye he could steal during the day to make up for the slaughter they were going through for the match against Tosei.

Even in his dreams, lately, he’s been doing things that are more relaxing than what he would normally do. At least, that’s his plan until he creates a beach with the plans to relax to the sounds of the waves and spots Mihashi playing in the surf. He’d stripped off his school outfit and was down to his boxers, which was absolutely pointless considering that this was a  _dream_  and it didn’t matter if he got wet, but maybe Mihashi couldn’t recognize that it was a dream like Abe could, or maybe he was more comfortable like this, or… 

“Abe-kun!” Mihashi exclaims when he happens to spot his catcher at the top of the beach. He startles, looks almost guilty, but then he straightens his spine and starts walking to Abe to meet him halfway. He fidgets under the sun, managing an apology for intruding on his dream, but Abe sighs and shakes his head before putting a hand on Mihashi’s hair that silences him immediately. 

“It’s not like you can control it,” Abe says after telling him that it’s fine, he doesn’t mind finding him in his dream, expecting Mihashi to stutter some kind of response and perhaps chirp out another apology before inviting him to play in the water with him, but instead, he gets an expression that Abe sees frequently but never off a baseball diamond. Instead, it ends up being Abe who strips off his shirt and pants, dashing to the ocean waves and telling Mihashi to help him find sand dollars since it’ll help him with his focus. He’s not sure  _how_  exactly, but they're the first words that come out of his mouth, and it gets Mihashi out of his thoughtful distracted state and into the water, his hand gripping Abe’s tightly because he doesn’t want to get knocked over by a wave and get hurt. Neither mention how they know that injuries in dreams don’t go back to the real world and Abe knits their fingers together.

\--------

The next day, Abe is alone in his dream.

\--------

Three days after their beach escapade, Abe is sitting at a little cafe in Paris when Mihashi walks up to his table and sits across from him. Mihashi doesn’t like the coffee because it’s bitter, but when the food comes at last, Abe watches with something odd shifting in his gut as Mihashi takes a bite of each bit of the food and talks about how he and his parents cooked this and that, and Abe stares at Mihashi over the rim of his coffee cup, tongue heavy for the taste of Mihashi’s food.

Two days after that, they meet at the top of a pyramid. It’s swelteringly hot and they both soon strip down to nothing, but even surrounded by the desert, nothing fills Abe with quite as much heat as the moment when he looks over to Mihashi and sees him licking salty sweat from his top lip. Startled by the intensity of his own thought, he reaches his hand out and suggest that they use the time to meditate together and practice generating alpha waves.

The next day, they’re sitting next to each other on a moderately busy train, and Mihashi looks outstandingly proud of himself. When Abe looks at him with a raised eyebrow, Mihashi’s little self-appreciative smile gets only wider as his pleased blush gets hotter and higher on his cheekbones. Abe hears the rustle of a newspaper from one of the nameless people sitting across from them, feels the gentle rocking of the train side to side as they veer into some destination that didn’t matter, because Mihashi was speaking and the words “I can control it now” are all he wants to hear.

And then everything changes when they’re spending a dream session in a log cabin going over the Tosei batter data. Mihashi wails pathetically about not being able to memorize this kind of data, and how he will only throw what Abe calls for so it’s pointless for him to even try, and Abe feels the rage building up in his gut because it was just  _one page_  of information and yet he’s also pleased because of the delicious pressure that was being put on him, the absolute trust that glitters in Mihashi’s eyes especially when his face is that close or maybe those are just tears and - 

Oh, Abe thinks, blinking once slowly and memorizing the curve of Mihashi’s eyelashes and each individual shade of his eyes before backing away, hoping that his hand is enough to cover the blush incinerating his face when he sees Mihashi hiccup and lick his lips nervously. His hand grips his pants tightly at his thigh, but even then he can’t  _not_  touch Mihashi, reaching up gently to cup Mihashi’s face and use his thumb to wipe away his fresh tears. 

“We’re… we’re going to win,” Mihashi says in a shaky voice, his face turning hot beneath Abe’s hand. Knowing that if he opens his mouth it won’t be to speak but to see if Mihashi’s words taste as good as they sound, Abe just nods.

\--------

“You’ve been pitching really well lately.”

Abe watches the color rise on Mihashi’s cheeks, unable to look at the ball he’s cleaning in his hand in favor of the way Mihashi blooms under the compliment. His shoulders are not as drawn up as they usually are, and when he parts his lips to speak, there’s almost no stutter there anymore.

“That’s because… we’ve been practicing a lot,” Mihashi responds, cutting his eyes up to Abe quickly before looking back down at the ball and continuing to scrub at it with the little brush. Abe hums low in his throat, finally looking down at his own brush and feeling the satisfied smile tug at the corner of his lips. Every day for the past two weeks, they’d spent hours together in Abe’s mind, sometimes pitching, sometimes playing whole games against imaginary teams, sometimes going ice fishing in the arctic. He’d lost track of all the time they’d spent in one dream or another, but even the other team members had noticed how much more seamless their battery was operating. Tajima openly asked if they’d had sex yet, but after being punched by Hanai and calming down a short-circuited Mihashi, he’d laughed it off.

Momoe called an end to practice and sent the boys home after everyone was showed and had a good pep talk. The game against Tosei was coming soon, and it was difficult to balance the need for practice against the danger of over-exhausting themselves. Even though they were tired, the walk out of the baseball field was animated as ever. Abe watched as Tajima piled himself on Mihashi, mussing his hair and babbling about how hard their math homework was going to be and how there was no  _way_  he was going to finish all of their English homework tonight. 

It’s Sakaeguchi’s voice that draws him from carefully eyeing Tajima’s placement on Mihashi’s shoulder. “You and Mihashi have been getting along really well lately,” he compliments. “He’s been making eye contact with everyone a lot better, too.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve been spending a lot of time together practicing and going over the other team’s data. He’s probably feeling more confident,” is Abe’s excuse, and Sakaeguchi makes a curious noise. He goes back to staring at Mihashi, relieved that Tajima is no longer hanging off his shoulder like some idiot who doesn’t know that pulling a pitcher’s arm the wrong way would ruin their chances at any summer games this year. Sakaeguchi laughs, but Abe doesn’t bother trying to decipher the peculiar expression on his face.

\--------

For the first time in a long time, Mihashi’s hand is cold to the touch.

Honestly, Abe had been worried that Mihashi would have been so nervous that he wouldn’t have been able to fall asleep in his classroom. He’d purposefully kept the dreamworld small, both to limit the strangers and to make it easier to find Mihashi if he did manage to come. It’s a baseball diamond, hoping that somehow it would entice his pitcher to come more than any other setting he could think of, late in the evening so that they would have a chance to be alone. To his surprise, when he’d walked into the dugout, Mihashi was already there, eyes expectant and wide.

No words had felt appropriate for the expression on Mihashi’s face, nor for the strange curling in his chest. So he’d sat down on the bench, and even as he moved his hand to take Mihashi’s, those long fingers prodded his own and they sat, palms touching and shoulders brushing in absolute silence. Tomorrow was the Tosei game, and Abe can feel every bit of insecurity in the lines of Mihashi’s palm against his.

He wonders if perhaps Mihashi would have felt more comfortable in a different location, if he’d messed up in putting the both of them on a baseball field. Just because he felt more comfortable in this particular setting didn’t mean that Mihashi did, and he was most concerned with whatever could get Mihashi to smile instead of look like he was on the edge of an anxiety attack. Abe’s own hands, warm even without touching Mihashi’s, ached to donate their heat, and he closed his eyes, focusing on spreading even one more degree across their skin.

“We’re going to win tomorrow.” Abe’s eyes open, and he looks over to Mihashi, his lips still slightly parted from where he’d spoken. His eyes lock with Abe’s, sure and confident. Mihashi’s hand squeezes his, tight but not enough to hurt, and finally their temperatures start to mingle.

Abe studies him, really looks at him, even though he had every little detail of Mihashi’s face perfectly memorized. The curve of his nose, the shape of his jaw, the dip on his upper lip, the bare hint of freckles that probably were only there because of the summer sun’s kiss… he knew every detail of Mihashi’s face, and yet he looks again, memorizes everything over, rewrites every assumption because Mihashi Ren was a lot of things but static was not on that list. And then Mihashi licks his lips, and it’s over, it’s all over. 

It turns out that Abe knows nothing about Mihashi’s face like this, how it feels against his own, how Mihashi’s breath caressing his skin is nothing short of electric, how each cell of Mihashi’s lips moving against his own is almost agonizing in its perfection. Even for a dream, it’s too good, and he can’t help but reach his other hand to clench in Mihashi’s hair as if to reconfirm that this really was his Mihashi, not a figment of his imagination, that his Mihashi was kissing him with those soft little breathy sounds that make him so hard his vision would have failed if his eyes weren't closed to get every sensory detail he could. Mihashi is just as reverent, his free hand tracing the strong lines of Abe’s throat and clutching tightly in his shirt, and when his lips part and his tongue traces the shape of Abe’s quivering mouth, it’s almost a sob that leaves Abe’s throat because no dream should be this good.

\--------

Mihashi looks good on the mound, Abe thinks, peering through his mask to see Mihashi chatting with Tajima, both looking up at the sky with a concerned expression. But then, Tajima returns to third and Mihashi turns his body to home plate, and his eyes lock with Abe’s, large and familiar. The game is about to begin, their first game against last year’s champions, and Mihashi’s lips pull into a smile at the exact same time as Abe feels his do the same.

 


End file.
